All posts tagged Ken Clarke

I didn’t get much joy out of Nick Clegg when we rang his people last week to ask whether he is still in favor of Britain joining the euro. Eventually all they would say is: “It is a theoretical question and it is not a decision for now.”

Ken Clarke was on more loquacious form on John Pienaar’s “BBC 5 Live” show on Sunday evening. He said that euro-zone membership had very little to do with Ireland’s current troubles. But when pressed on whether he wishes Britain had joined back when he was sharing pro-euro platforms with Tony Blair, Hezza and Peter Mandelson, he denied (sort of) that he had wanted to take Britain in.

“I never advocated joining at the exchange rate, couldn’t have joined at the exchange rate in 1997.”

Asked whether Britain should join the euro now he said it couldn’t, because the economy was in crisis. Earlier he said the British aren’t going to join the euro (which, in current circumstances, wins an award for the statement of the bleeding obvious).

Did David Cameron set out to try and outflank Labour on the left on crime? I doubt it. Still, it looks like that’s where he’s headed thanks to Ken Clarke. Since taking office his veteran Justice Secretary has been determinedly pushing government policy in a much more liberal direction. He is determined to whittle away short sentences, believing that community service sentences are preferable.

Clarke has long been on the liberal wing of his party on such subjects. He is a veteran of the Heath years and highly skeptical of Michael Howard’s “prison works” mantra. Even if Cameron objected, one doubts that Clarke would listen, let alone change course. As a counterweight, Cameron has the almost invisible (until today, and her statement on phone hacking) Theresa May as Home Secretary. That leaves the scales of justice pretty unbalanced in favor of an ultra-liberal approach.